The Education for All and inclusive education debate: conflict, contradiction or opportunity?

TLDR

The Education for All programme historically overlooks marginalized children, especially those with special educational needs, leading to exclusion of up to 90–98% of children in Southern countries and fostering a parallel, conflicting debate on inclusive education. The paper challenges prevailing rhetoric and highlights opportunities arising from global commitment to quality education for all children. It proposes reconceptualizing the relationship between EFA and inclusive education, advocating collaboration and offering practical strategies for sustainable, context‑appropriate policies. The study finds that polarization between EFA and inclusive education is unhelpful and wasteful.

Abstract

This paper begins with an exploration of the history of the international Education for All (EFA) programme and its tendency to overlook some marginalised groups of children, in particular those seen as having ‘special educational needs’ or impairments and disabilities. The exclusion from ‘mainstream’ education programmes of the estimated, though unreliable, figures of 90 or 98% of children in Southern countries has, until relatively recently, been largely unchallenged. The explanation lies in the still prevalent view that some children are ‘ineducable’ and that overcrowded and under‐resourced schools would not be able to cope. Consequently, a largely parallel, international debate has developed about ‘inclusive education’, within which many conflicting positions exist. We suggest that there is an unhelpful and wasteful polarisation between EFA and inclusive education. Although inclusive education is defined by some writers in terms of overcoming barriers to learning and development for all children, in the context of Southern countries it tends to fill the gap left by EFA and so focuses almost exclusively on disabled children. This paper challenges some of the rhetoric, but also highlights the opportunities created by the current international interest in, and apparent commitment to, delivering quality education for all children. The paper concludes by offering a re‐conceptualisation of the relationship between EFA and inclusive education, argues for greater collaboration and synergy between these currently parallel initiatives, and suggests ways in which practitioners and policy makers can develop more sustainable, and context‐appropriate, policies and practices.